Contents

History

The eponymous protagonist of the 2000 AD strip Jaegir is Kapiten-Inspector Atalia Jaegir, a veteran of the war between the Norts and the Southers on Nu Earth. (During the war she was part of a squad of Norts sent on an unsuccessful mission to capture the Traitor General.) Jaegir's father, Marshal-Minister Josef Jaegir, was one of Nordland's most respected military leaders. Her mother, however, was a Souther who was executed by the Nords. They put her in a gas chamber and filled it with Zyclops-D (reminiscent of Zyklon B, used by the Nazis in the Holocaust), a virus that ate her alive from the inside.

Now an officer of the Nordland State Security Police, working for the Office of Public Truth, Jaegir is tasked with pursuing war criminals who have so far escaped justice. When they evade the legal system, she discreetly kills them. Aided by her loyal team — Klaur, Reesa and Heize — Jaegir must face all the terrors lurking in Nordland's shadows while trying to balance her duty with her conscience. She is haunted by an incident in her past when her actions led to the deaths of three hundred and twenty-seven Souther prisoners.

One of the biggest threats Jaegir has to face is the 'strigoi taint', a genetic aberration which gives its carriers heightened strength, speed and reflexes, but which can also turn them into aggressive subhuman monsters. This flaw was deliberately introduced to the Nort gene pool by Jaegir's father in an attempt "to turn us into a race of genetically enhanced super-soldiers." When the unwanted side effects of his DNA manipulation became apparent, Josef Jaegir fell from grace and was sent into exile. However, before his programme was discontinued, he introduced the strigoi taint into his own daughter. Atalia Jaegir lives with the knowledge that she may one day become one of the monsters her team hunts.

Powers and abilities

Powers

Speed, strength and reflexes above peak human normal.

Abilities

Proficient soldier.

Weaknesses

The alteration of her DNA has the potential to lead to bestial madness.

Paraphernalia

Equipment

ID card.

Transportation

Various military vehicles and spaceships.

Weapons

Notes

Jaegir is a spin-off from the long-running Rogue Trooper series, and the Trooper himself appears occasionally in flashbacks to Atalia's time on Nu Earth. She remembers him as a "blue demon" mercilessly slaughtering her troops. The series is a refreshing departure from the original Rogue Trooper mythos, where the Norts were standard-issue baddies whose only rôle was to shout "Stak!" or "Nain! Nain!" while lining up to be killed.

Atalia's childhood reached misery-memoir levels of awfulness. Her mother was dead, her father was brutally strict, her half-brothers mostly treated her with hatred and contempt, her father once told her that he wished that she'd died instead of one of her siblings, and her half-brother Rodion killed her pet puppy.

Trivia

'Jäger' is German for 'hunter'.

A 'strigoi' is a type of undead supernatural monster from Eastern Europe.